PENNINGTON PLANNING BOARD UPDATE
By Marianne Hooker
At its Nov. 9 meeting, the Pennington Planning Board held a work session to discuss several planning-related issues.
Among them was the Bristol-Myers Squibb (B-MS) General Development Plan, which was OK’d by the Hopewell Township Planning Board the next day, Nov. 10 (see more details in a related story on Page 1A this week).
Pennington board Chairman Winn Thomspon said the borough had hired Hill Environmental Group to review the aspects of the plan related to water issues. They concluded that, based on the assumptions in the plan, the development proposal would have no ill effects on the borough.
Mr. Thompson also said there is a developer’s agreement between B-MS and Pennington Borough. As formal approvals are granted, and development occurs on the site, B-MS will contribute its fair share toward improving local intersections that are affected by traffic from the facility. When the time comes, the borough will need to select a traffic engineer to help prioritize these future traffic improvements.
The board also reviewed the draft ordinance on the proposed Affordable Housing Overlay Zone. This ordinance originated with the Pennington Planning Board and recently was submitted to the Borough Council. The council referred it back to the board with a few non-substantive changes in wording. After a brief review of these changes, the board voted unanimously to send it back to the Borough Council, which must adopt the measure to make it law.
The board then discussed the Hopewell Valley Regional School District’s proposed 2005 Long-Range Facilities Plan. Mr. Thompson said the district has proposed to buy South Timberlane Drive from Hopewell Township. This would enable the district to close the street off to through traffic. Such a change might divert some of the school-related traffic into the borough.
One board member commented that if the district is seeking additional water or sewer capacity for the schools from the borough, there is not much capacity available. The planners agreed to send the district comments to this effect.
There was a brief discussion of the plans for the new borough Public Works building, for which a contract to do the work recently was approved by council. Jim Lytle, liaison to Borough Council, said site preparation work is now complete. The proposed building has been reoriented on the site, but there have been no other major changes to the previously submitted plans.
Mr. Thompson reported on a meeting he attended of a committee devoted to improving the safety of Route 31. There was a discussion at the meeting of ways to improve the safety of the intersection at West Delaware Avenue. In the past there had been talk of building a pedestrian overpass at this intersection, to serve students walking to and from the middle school and high school. At this latest meeting, another alternative was suggested a pedestrian underpass further north, possibly near the corner of Broemel Place. Mr. Thompson said such an underpass could be built with long ramps, in order to make it more bicycle-friendly. This might eventually be tied in with future and existing bike trails.
In other business, the board passed a resolution of memorialization to formalize its approval last month of a use variance for Randolph and Emily Brokaw.
At this meeting there were no formal applications before the board.

